Ethics Institute taking part in new Horizon-2020 project

Large research project on refugees, human rights and European values receives funding

The European Commission has recently funded a large new research project in which Utrecht University’s Ethics Institute participates.

Refugee crisis

An interdisciplinary research team will investigate how the recent so-called ‘refugee crisis’ has influenced the self-understanding of the EU and its member states. The project also aims to develop an ethically justified view regarding refugees, and to clarify the duties European institutions have in a globalized world and with regard to global conflicts.

European values

Citizens of the EU have been much concerned about the number of refugees arriving via the Balkans and the Mediterranean. Concerns relate to security, economic impact and preserving national and cultural identities. Debates about ‘European values’ have emerged. Isn’t it part of these values to assist refugees? At the same time, refugees are often expected to conform to European values. Yet what are those values? Why talk of ‘European’ values at all? Aren’t human rights at the core of the EU’s moral and political identity?

The project fits very well with the research we do in the Ethics Institute. Our institute investigates fundamental aspects of human rights as well as normative notions such as justice, mutual recognition and human dignity. The institute also researches concrete moral questions in for example economic and political institutions.

International research team

The Horizon-2020 project Norms and Values in the European Migration and Refugee Crisis(NoVaMigra) will be carried out by philosophers, legal scholars, political scientists and anthropologists from eight European countries and the US, among them researchers from Utrecht University’s Ethics Institute (Prof Marcus Düwell and Dr Jos Philips). Total research funding available is 2,5 million euros.